Depósitos fiscales, regulares y zonas francas

‘There is clearly something about the story that lends itself to pluralistic interpretations.’232

Maria Tatar’s words, quoted above from her book The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales, could be taken as referring to any and every single one of the fairy-tales. Further, Tatar suggests that often these pluralistic interpretations go to extremes.233 _{The rich symbolism in fairy-tales leads}

psychoanalysts to focus on one aspect of the story, while ignoring all the others. As an example, Tatar cites Eric Fromm’s interpretation of the bottle (in his opinion a symbol of virginity) that Little Red Riding Hood carries with her, with a warning not to break it.234 _{The problem with this kind of}

interpretation, in Tatar’s view, is that psychoanalysts ignore the variant forms of these fairy tales, which leads to a generalisation based on ‘false premises’.235

The same could be said about Dvoř_{ák’s Rusalka, especially modern stage productions from} Central and Northern Europe, in which often ambiguous and psychological frameworks that update the stories in modern settings are given to many operas from the same era. Often referred to as ‘eurotrash’, for some audience members these new interpretations are confusing, and perceived as a ‘distortion’ of the original.

5.1.1 The Influence of Disney

In the case of Rusalka, a reaction against a reinterpretation may be exacerbated by the fact that it is a fairy-tale. From the time of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in 1937, Disney’s animated films,

232 _{Maria Tatar, The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales, expanded second edition (Princeton, New Jersey:} Princeton University Press, 2003), 42

233 _{Ibid, 42} 234 _{Ibid, 43} 235 _{Ibid, 42}

many of them based on fairy-tales, have had all the extremely negative elements from the originals removed. Because film in general, and the Disney animated films in particular, have become so powerful and influential, the Disney approach to fairy tales has undoubtedly affected the general idea about what the fairy tales are supposed to be like. Furthermore, Cheek points out that because they are animated, these Disney fairy-tales came to be perceived as ‘cute’.236 _{Stefan Herheim, a Norwegian}

opera director, states there is always a possibility of deception on the behalf of the spectators when they come to see his productions and discover that instead of a fairy-tale world, they see ‘the everyday nature of reality’.237

Today’s opera goer who comes to see Rusalka for the first time might have heard from someone that the story is very similar to that of Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. The association might not be with the real story, but rather Disney’s Little Mermaid, which has been stripped of its true meaning. Disney’s adaptation of The Little Mermaid was released in 1989, eighty-eight years after Dvoř_{ák’s Rusalka. Interestingly enough, the eighties were the era in which Rusalka started to gain} international success. However, Cheek points out that even before the appearance of Disney’s Little

Mermaid Harold C. Schonberg wrote a review of Juilliard’s 1975 staging, stating the production was

‘handicapped by the direction that was more Disney than Dvoř_ák’.238 _{Therefore, even before 1989, a}

Disneyesque approach to fairy tales influenced the staging of Rusalka. In fact, Cheek observes that some productions tend to have one singer singing the parts of Ježibaba and the Foreign Princess, such as that of the Vienna State Opera in 1987, in which Eva Randová sang both parts.239 _{Not only is this}

demanding (Ježibaba is written for a mezzo, the Foreign Princess is a soprano), but it seems ironically to mirror the Disney approach. These productions suggest that Ježibaba transforms into the Foreign Princess in order to sabotage Rusalka, which is basically what happens in the 1989 film The Little

Mermaid, as Ursula transforms into dark-haired Vanessa.

Because of Disney’s influence, then, opera goers come to Rusalka with a particular set of expectations for the staging and story. Andersen’s The Little Mermaid is quite shocking in its graphic

236 _{Cheek, Rusalka, 62}

237 _{MM, http://www.lamonnaie.be/en/mymm/article/38/Interview-Stefan-Herheim/, (17 January 2014)} 238 _{Cheek, Rusalka, 62}

description of tongue-cutting. Additionally, Tatar makes an interesting point while discussing the Grimm brothers’ fairy-tales: that reading the original fairy-tales is sometimes an ‘eye opening experience’ for adults, due to the ‘graphic description of murder, mutilation, cannibalism, infanticide and incest’.240 _{The greatest shock of all seems to be the fact that they were intended for children. A}

parallel could be drawn here: watching the modern productions of Rusalka could be seen as an eye- opening experience for adults, since they go to see the opera expecting a Disneyesque setting.

Figure 5.1 Rusalka in Prague, 29 January, 1960241

5.1.2 Fairy tales in Psychology and on Stage

Fairy tales, as suggested in Chapter One, have been analysed since the birth of psychology in order to explain the human mind, focusing mainly on the unconscious. Many contemporary opera directors, predominantly from Central and Northern Europe, have explored the psychological layers in Rusalka

240_{Maria Tatar, The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales, 3}

in a variety of productions, illustrating the powerful connection between fairy-tales and psychology that I propose in this thesis. What is interesting is that some of these European contemporary productions emphasise this psychological layer, whereas musicological criticism remains influenced by either a Wagnerian or instrumental analytical framework. In musicological criticism, (Ludwig Haesler being the only exception), any detailed exploration of the potential of the psychological contexts is almost non-existent.